Religion in Poland

Overview

In spite of being a majority Christian country, Poland has a high reputation for the level of its religious tolerance.  There are traces of all the dominant world religions here, including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism.  Members of these faiths co-exist peacefully with the majority Catholic population.

Christianity

88% of the population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, which wields a great amount of influence in political, as well as social matters.  Roman Catholics are not the only Catholics in Poland - there are three other branches of Catholicism, including the Armenian, Byzantine-Ukrainian, and Neo-Uniate Churches.  When you consider all four branches of Catholicism together, the number accounts for close to 95% of the population.  Poles, both Catholics and non Catholics, are immensely proud of their Church and consider it a symbol of national prestige.

Other Christian groups in this medical tourism destination include Jehovah’s Witnesses, who number about 220,000, and Eastern Orthodox Christians who are about 506,000 in number.  There are approximately 160,000 Protestants throughout the country, including members of the Augsburg Evangelical Church, the United Pentecostal Church, and the 7^th day Adventist Church.  There are also other Old Catholic churches which are not related to the 4 churches linked directly to Rome.  These include the Catholic Church of the Mariavites and the Polish National Catholic Church.  Poles have a tremendous reverence for native son, Pope John Paul II who is credited with bringing about a revolution in the Catholic Church.  

Other Religions

The Polish religious landscape changed dramatically after the end of the Second World War.  Judaism, which had been a thriving religion before the arrival of the Nazis, had been almost completely exterminated.  Close to 90% of the country’s Jewish population (the largest in Europe at that time) had been executed.  Today, there is a small population of Polish Jews who come under the umbrella of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities.

The Muslim Religious Union oversees matters relating to Islam in the country, while the international Krishna Awareness Society looks after the interests of the smattering of Hindus who practice their faith in this medical tourism hub.